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Parental Health and Child Schooling

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Abstract

This paper provides new evidence on the impact of parental health shocks on investment in child education using detailed longitudinal data from Bosnia and Herzegovina. Our study controls for individual unobserved heterogeneity by using child fixed effects, and it accounts for potential health misreporting by employing several, more objective, health indicators. Our results show that children of ill mothers, but not of ill fathers, are significantly less likely to be enrolled in education at ages 15-24. Moreover, there is some evidence that mothers’ health shocks have more negative consequences on younger children and sons.

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  • M. Bratti & M. Mendola, 2012. "Parental Health and Child Schooling," CHILD Working Papers Series 4, Centre for Household, Income, Labour and Demographic Economics (CHILD) - CCA.
    • Handle: RePEc:cca:wchild:4
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Human Capital; Intrahousehold allocation; Health shocks; Education; Bosnia and Herzegovina;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration

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